Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Question 207: To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the procedures in place to ensure cross Departmental co-operation for the filling of strategically important vacancies at companies in highly globalised and competitive industries when such companies have encountered clear difficulties in sourcing Irish and EU citizens with the requisite skills [33646/12]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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There is close strategic alignment across Government in both identifying and responding to the skills needs of highly globalised and competitive industries operating in Ireland. The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) advises the Irish Government on current and future skills needs of the economy and on other labour market issues that impact on Ireland's enterprise and employment growth. It has a central role in ensuring that labour market needs for skilled workers are anticipated and met. Forfás, under my Department, in conjunction with FÁS, under the Department of Education and Skills provides the EGFSN with research and secretariat support.

A report produced in January by the EGFSN entitled Addressing High-Level ICT Skills Recruitment Needs confirms that Ireland is a successful major centre for ICT operations with around 75,000 people employed in 8,000 companies. Indeed, ten of the top ICT companies in the world have substantial operations in Ireland. The research undertaken by the Group, indicates that the global ICT market is expected to grow by 5% between 2009 and 2014/15 with potential growth rate as high as 20% per annum over the next decade. In order to exploit these opportunities, however, it is crucial to ensure that Ireland's labour force is appropriately skilled. In this context the Group's report found that there are a range of skills and recruitment difficulties within the ICT sector with the result that, as at December 2011, there were approximately 1,800 vacancies in the sector. These vacancies arose mainly due to the lack of graduates with high-level ICT Honours Degrees and above which are required to fill such positions as Computer Software Engineers, ICT Network Specialists and Engineers, ICT Security Experts, ICT Telecommunications, ICT Project Managers and IT Sales and Marketing / Foreign Languages Skills Personnel. The report points out that this challenge is not unique to Ireland as such high level ICT skills are also in short supply globally.

In order to address these challenges from domestic sources I, along with my colleague, Mr Ruairi Quinn, T.D., Minister for Education and Skills, subsequently launched the ICT Action Plan: Meeting the High Level ICT Skills Needs of Enterprise in Ireland. The Action Plan establishes an overreaching target of doubling the annual output from honours degree ICT undergraduate programmes to 2,000 graduates by 2018 and outlines a number of actions that will be implemented to ensure an increased output of appropriately skilled graduates in the medium term 2015-2018.

As part of my Departments policies for attracting employees for specified highly skilled and strategically important occupations, where a skills shortage exists, Green Card employment permits may be issued. The Green Card permit is issued to the employee and allows his or her employment in the State by the named employer in the occupation specified on the permit. It may be issued for a period of two years. The employee may apply for immediate family re-unification and an application for long-term residence may be made after two years. No labour market needs test (e.g. newspaper and FÁS/EURES advertising) is required prior to making an application. Up to 50% of staff employed by a company in Ireland may be employment permit holders.

The Department also operates an Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) scheme. This scheme is designed to facilitate the transfer of senior management, key personnel or trainees who are foreign nationals from an overseas branch of a multinational corporation to its Irish branch. Up to 5% of the workforce may have ICT Permits. However for startups this may be waived on a case by case basis for an initial period. No labour market needs test is required in respect of an application for an Intra-Company Transfer permit. Certain criteria apply in the case of ICTs.

Also my Department operates the Researcher Mobility "Hosting Agreement" scheme, which provides for the entry into the State of researchers from Third Countries under Council Directive 2005/71/EC, which has operated very successfully since 2007. As an example of cross-Departmental co-operation, a Hosting Agreement Extranet was established enabling relevant key departments, such as Immigration authorities, Embassies and Consulates access to an electronic database thus expediting immigration procedures for third country researchers. The Extranet is operated and maintained by the Irish Universities Association.